Electronic apparatus for the automatic composition and reproduction of musical data

Abstract

An electronic apparatus for the automatic composition and reproduction of musical accompaniments and/or songs. The apparatus comprises a memory for storing a plurality of multi-track patterns containing musical data relating to songs and/or accompaniments of various styles; a selector is operable for controlling operational data tables on the basis of memorized program instructions, so as to select and read data of musical events on one or more data tracks, or parts thereof, in each of the selected pattern, as well as comprises operational program device for sequentially reading and composing the musical data contained in the data tracks of selected patterns, so as to make the number of musical measures and the temporal lengths of the selected data tracks uniform and to synchronize in real time the reading of data tracks having equal and/or different length, at points comprised in the real portion or in a virtual extension of each data track; the musical data of the tracks read in one pattern and the musical data of the tracks read in a successively selected pattern are therefore maintained in a musically consistent condition.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. An electronic apparatus for the composition and reproduction of musical data comprising: memory means for storing a plurality base patterns of musical data, in which each base pattern consists of a set of parallel tracks containing musical data relating to different songs and/or accompaniment styles, and in which said data tracks in each pattern have a same or different lengths which extend over a given number of musical bars;   data pattern selection and control means for selecting and reading the musical data of one or more data tracks in each pattern in said memory means;   as well as program means comprising program instructions for reading and sequentially composing the musical data from different selected patterns and subsequently read from said memory means, said programming means for the composition and reading of the musical data of the selected patterns comprising: control means operative during data reading, for conforming the number of musical bars and the temporal length of the data tracks of shorter length, to the number of musical bars and the lengths of the longest data track in each base pattern, and means for synchronizing reading of the data patterns selected so as to start, in real time, the reading of tracks of equal or different length of a data pattern, from a point comprised in a real part or in a virtual extension of tracks of equal and/or different length of each pattern selected from said memory means, maintaining in a musically consistent condition the musical data read in each selected pattern and the musical data read in a subsequently selected pattern.   
     
     
       2. An apparatus according to claim 1, in which the memory means comprise a plurality of musical patterns relating to a multiplicity of arrangement variations for different styles and/or songs, memorized in two pattern groups, of which one group comprises a first set of pattern divisions, in which the musical data relating to a cyclically repeatable succession of musical events are memorized only once or in a "compacted" form so as to be read and cyclically reproduced, and in which the other group of patterns comprises a second set of pattern divisions formed by a non-cyclical succession of musical events, which are memorized in their total extension and which are read and played once only; and in which each pattern division in turn comprises different musical modes, such as "major", "minor" and "seventh" each one composed of several tracks of equal and/or different length containing the data of musical events relating to various associated instrument groups. 
     
     
       3. An apparatus according to claim 1, in which the data pattern selection and control means comprise an address selecting device for selecting the read addresses of the musical data patterns, and a pointer unit for reading the musical data tracks of the patterns memorized in said memory means; and in which said pattern selection means comprise a MIDI IN port. 
     
     
       4. An apparatus according to claim 3, in which the musical data pattern read unit is connected to means for generating musical tones via a MIDI OUT serial port. 
     
     
       5. An apparatus according to claim 1, comprising counting signal generating means for generating signals for counting the duration and the distances between musical events of the pattern tracks, in which the means for synchronizing reading of the tracks of the selected data patterns comprise an arithmetic calculating unit programmed for performing division of the number of counting signals lapsed from the start of a pattern reading, by the number of counting signals contained in each musical bar of a selected non-cyclical data pattern, or by the number of counting signals contained in the entire track of a selected cyclical pattern, assigning the value of the remainder of this division as the value for a /counting device designed to indicate the number of counting signals to be skipped in order to synchronize the current reading of a data pattern track with the reading of a subsequently selected data pattern track. 
     
     
       6. An apparatus according to claim 1, in which said means for memorizing the musical data patterns comprise a read only memory (ROM) containing pre-memorized data patterns. 
     
     
       7. An apparatus according to claim 1, in which said data pattern memory means comprise a read-and-write memory (RAM) for the composition of new musical data patterns. 
     
     
       8. An electronic musical instrument in combination with an electronic apparatus for the automatic composition and reproduction of data according to claim 1, in which said electronic musical instrument comprises tone generating means for the automatic generation of musical tones connected to said MIDI OUT port.